Wrong Perspectives

After hearing an account of one man's experience  with a most terrible disease, Necrotising Fasciitis (NF), last night I began thinking about the radical surgery techniques employed in the treatment of it and, for some weird reason perhaps, reflected on the words of Jesus in Matthew 18: 8 - 9:

“If your hand or your foot gets in the way of God, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owners of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

The man speaking of his experience told of how he'd been feeling unwell and then collapsed. Having been diagnosed with the NF bug he was rushed to surgery and they amputated bits of him until they were ahead of the bug. Once there were no bits of it active in his body they could relax a bit and treat the fall out and the effects of the surgery.

An amazingly radical treatment which removed a fair bit of his body so that he could live. Apparently he was one of the 'lucky ones' because it was in the connective tissues and in places where amputation and antibiotic could do their stuff together. Others are not always that 'fortunate'.

I guess that sin is exactly the same as NF in that unless we remove the seat of the sinful act it will spread its disease throughout the body and bring it to death. Better to live a life that's bound for heaven with only one (whatever) than have a complete body fit for the morgue!

A graphic example of what Jesus meant when he spoke of us having members which would lead us to death and the treatment of them.